Journey of Fire and Night (The Endless War Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  When Alena had dismissed him for the day, he hadn’t known why. It was rare to have free time, especially with the strange requests Alena had of him. One morning, she’d asked him to shape the wind for nearly two hours straight. That had taxed him in a way he hadn’t been tested in years, but he had done it and not said anything. Another evening, he had been forced to light all the fires throughout the barracks. Jasn got the sense that it was some sort of tradition since no one stopped him or bothered to question him as he went from building to building, lighting fires. Even that wasn’t enough for Alena. She’d wanted him to light only part of the fire, making it so that specific logs, or specific parts of logs, burned.

  Bayan nodded. “Summons. Her and Calan.”

  Even as frustrating as Alena could be, he would have loved having the opportunity to watch her. Calan had a reputation as an incredible hunter, and if he had caught nearly ten draasin, that was impressive. If Jasn could learn that… His time in Rens would change. Maybe he’d want to live long enough to destroy a few of the creatures.

  Jasn turned back to his stew and had just taken a spoonful when Bayan tensed. Jasn set his spoon down, feeling a charge to the air but not knowing why, almost as if someone shaped nearby. “What is it?”

  She stood without speaking and started toward the door. Near the back of the dining hall, Thenas poked his head out from a doorway and looked toward the end of the hall. His eyes went distant and then he hurried after Bayan, as if they had planned to leave together. Jasn followed, curiosity driving him more than hunger.

  Outside, the charge to the air was more prominent. Bayan disappeared down the end of the wide street and he chased after her, ignoring Thenas’s glare as he passed. He found Bayan stopped near the edge of the barracks, but she no longer caught his attention.

  A massive blue-scaled draasin settled at the edge of the trees. Stone chains were wrapped around each wing, and another chain bound its long snout. It jerked its head, trying to get free and failing. Bright yellow eyes stared at everyone but fixed mostly on Alena. The warrior stood with her long golden hair catching the sunlight, one hand outstretched while the other held one of the chains, a steady shaping radiating from her the same as when Jasn had seen her in the pen.

  Calan, a wide shaper with a heavy paunch that swallowed his belt—Jasn wondered how he ever unsheathed his sword—held the other chain. A tight expression pulled at the corner of his wrinkled eyes, and Jasn couldn’t tell if it was determination or frustration.

  Bayan answered for him. “Guess Calan won’t be getting his tenth today,” she said to Thenas as he stopped next to her.

  “Why do they capture them?” Jasn asked. He gripped the hilt of his sword, struggling against the urge to unsheathe it and attack.

  “Need to study the draasin to know how to hunt,” Bayan answered. “This one is bigger than the other, so will make for better training.”

  “If it survives,” Thenas spat. “Last one they brought in like this was too violent. Wyath had to put it down. Do you really think the pen can hold a creature this size?”

  “Alena does,” Bayan said.

  “Of course she does,” Thenas said. “Just wait. Calan will have his prize soon enough.”

  The two hunters dragged the creature past them, both focused intently on keeping control of the beast. As they passed, the damn creature swung its head toward him, and Jasn could practically feel heat surge and a painful crawling down his spine that started near the base of his skull. He had unsheathed his sword and started toward it before Bayan grabbed him and pulled him back.

  Then Calan jerked on the chain again, pulling the draasin toward the other pen. Jasn didn’t sheathe his sword until it was out of sight.

  9

  Jasn

  The Order of Warrior has existed for several hundred years, and Commander Nolan is widely considered the greatest leader the order has known. Ending the war required sacrificing the most powerful of the order to another task. Had he not, much would have been lost.

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

  Heat radiated from the circular stone pen, seeping through unseen gaps in the stone and raising a soft mist in the air. The pen trapped the massive draasin, holding it in place in the days since Alena and Calan had brought it to the barracks. Even without the heat, he’d know it was there. The damn creature slammed against the stone as if intending to crack the walls of the pen and free itself. Judging from the heat making its way out, Jasn wondered if that might be possible.

  Jasn had watched the pen over the past few days, wondering why they had brought the creature here. They already had one of the beasts here; what purpose would they have for another, especially one large enough to make a serious attempt at escaping?

  Each time he neared the pen, he touched the hilt of his sword. With the right shaping, he could kill the draasin before it had the chance to attack, but he still didn’t know how to even get in.

  “This one is a little feisty,” Wyath said. His mouth was pulled tight and the shaping he held strained at the corner of his eyes, but there was an energy to him that Jasn hadn’t seen since coming to the barracks.

  “How many have you kept here?” he asked.

  The wall thudded again and Wyath grunted. He pressed his hands onto the stone and his shaping built again. Was he resealing the stone around the draasin each time it launched itself into the wall? What would happen if he slipped or if someone else was assigned and either wasn’t as skilled or made a mistake?

  Jasn didn’t have to work hard to imagine the destruction the creature could cause if that was the case. Even wrapped in stone chains, the beast had looked deadly. Better to slide a blade into its skull.

  “Been a few. Most smaller than this one. Don’t know what Alena was thinking bringing one this size to the barracks. Don’t need them this big to study,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Jasn had another question for Wyath, but the old warrior clearly needed help. “Is this a shaping I can assist with?” Jasn ignored the withering look Wyath shot him and stepped up to the pen. A deep part of his mind told him that what he did was foolish, but he paid it no mind and placed his hands on either side of one of the letters carved into the stone. “Show me what I can do.”

  Wyath chewed on a twig of tobash, the bitter scent catching the air. At least it smelled better than the hot, painful stink of the draasin.

  “You’re skilled with earth?” Wyath asked.

  Jasn nodded. “Skilled enough.”

  “Suppose you must be if you lasted a year in Rens. Didn’t think the commander would bring anyone here without at least that, but the last girl he brought…” He shook his head. “Anyway, so long as you can hold earth, you can hold the draasin. That’s the key with these creatures, especially once they’re bound.”

  The wall trembled again as the draasin crashed into it. With his hands pressed into the stone, Jasn felt it differently, almost as if the stone wanted to release the creature. He thought of some of the older people from his village and the way they would go on about speaking to the earth or the wind. It was the cries of an aging mind, a mind trying to make sense of their time coming to a close, but feeling the way the creature hit the stone, and the way the stone pushed against his hands, he could almost imagine hearing the stone beg him to release the draasin.

  “How do they bind them?” Jasn asked. If he knew that, he would know the beginning of what he needed to hunt them. He pressed with an earth shaping, following what he sensed from Wyath. The shaping built slowly, drawn from deep within him, and pulled through the ground at his feet, feeding more stone to the pen. It was a shaping Jasn had done before and mimicked what Wyath did.

  “Ah, now you’re getting ahead of yourself. Be grateful I’m letting you help me.”

  Jasn glanced over at Wyath. Sweat trickled down the man’s brow and he clenched his jaw. There was something more complex in his shaping that Jasn couldn’t quite make out, an additional effort that Wyath made to hold
his shaping in place. “Better than wandering through the trees trying to find Alena.”

  “Sorry about that.” When Jasn arched a brow at him, Wyath shrugged. “She learned that particular lesson from me.”

  “You trained Alena?”

  Wyath nodded. “One of my last students before…” He tapped his hip. The draasin slammed into the wall again, this time sending a spray of dust flying. “Damn creature,” Wyath muttered.

  “Will it hold?”

  “The pen? Probably. But we might need to keep a shaping on it for a while. Most of the time, it’s the seasoned students who hold the shaping. Builds up their endurance, you know? But this one is a bit bigger than usual. Cheneth didn’t want it to get free. Have to kill it then.”

  “That would be fine with me.”

  “Would it? What will we learn from it then?” Wyath asked. “We need to find a way to redirect the creatures, keep them from flying over Ter. Kill them if we have to, but they’re no different than the wolves prowling the mountains around here.”

  Only the wolves didn’t spit fire and had never attacked when shapers moved into Rens, controlled by the soldiers of Rens.

  Was that it? Was that the reason Alena and Calan brought the draasin here?

  “You want to know how they ride them?” Jasn asked.

  He pulled his hands back without thinking, his shaping disappearing in a snap. If that was the case, what did they want from him? Hunting the draasin was dangerous enough, but trying to control them? It would seem like fighting an eruption of fire, like constantly trying to contain an explosion.

  Only, if Ter could control them rather than Rens, the tide of war would quickly turn.

  “Get your hands back in here,” Wyath snapped.

  Jasn pressed his hands against the pen and rebuilt his shaping. “Is that it?” he asked. “I’ve seen riders while in Rens. Is that what you want? You want to learn how they ride them?”

  Wyath sighed. “Not quite. Riders… we don’t know enough about them. When we first faced Rens, the draasin would attack, controlled by Rens. The barracks were built, and we were determined to find a way to stop the attacks, to understand how to kill these beasts. Over time, we learned about the riders. Well, you know what the scholars decided.” He slapped a hand on the stone and shook his head. “That’s why we have two of these. There’s a third, but it’s deeper in the mountains. Only fully trained hunters ever see it. Keep the big ones there.”

  “Like this?” Jasn asked. The first draasin he’d ever seen had been nothing more than a distant speck in the sky. Even then, he’d felt the way it changed the heat around him, leaving a normally cool day changed into something much warmer. The draasin he’d seen in Rens had been this size, maybe smaller.

  Wyath smiled, almost as if knowing his thoughts. “You think this a big one? Might be decent sized, but it’s nothing compared to some of the monsters we’ve faced. They can pull two shapers out of the sky and tear them apart as if there’s nothing to it. There’s a reason Alena is hard on you with your training,” he went on, his voice taking a more serious turn. “You screw up, you die. Pretty simple with the draasin. It’s a lesson Alena learned better than any of my students, and it’s why she’s the best I ever trained.”

  “They’ve tried to kill me,” Jasn said.

  “I heard that.”

  “So we just hold this shaping?” Jasn asked, changing the topic. Learning how to attack the draasin was the beginning of what he needed to know to succeed in finally getting revenge for what happened with Katya, and he would take every opportunity to make the best of it.

  Wyath slapped the stone, and it trembled slightly. “Nah, that would be too much work for me. We’ll hold it until I seal it better. Since you offered to help, we’ll get to really test you and see how well you can hold on to the shaping, so long as Alena doesn’t have something she’d rather have you off doing.”

  Jasn suspected that whatever Alena would have him doing would be more of the same. Since she’d returned from finding this creature, she’d been more somber. The times she’d assigned him to search through the woods hadn’t brought him any nearer to finding her, though he had to admit his focus had improved. Not only his focus, but with earth and water closed to him by whatever strange shaping Alena managed, he had improved his sensitivity to wind mostly, but also to fire. As much as he’d thought her lessons useless, he’d learned something from them.

  “I’m here to learn.” Jasn hoped Wyath wouldn’t take the comment the wrong way. Even in the few moments he’d been with him, the old hunter had already proven to be a more willing teacher than what he got from Alena.

  Wyath grunted as the draasin slammed into the wall again. A trickle of dust drifted from tiny cracks in the stone that he sealed as quickly as they formed. Wyath’s eyes widened briefly, and then he pushed against the stone, shaking his head as he did. “Well, you’ll get plenty of opportunity with this one.”

  Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm Jasn by the end of the day. He’d been holding a shaping of earth with Wyath, maintaining it as the old hunter carved letters into the side of the pen, layering them atop those already there. He claimed they would seal in the draasin and hold the pen secure. At first, Jasn wasn’t sure that he believed him, but the more Wyath added, the less effort Jasn had to use to hold the shaping.

  A part of him had hoped Wyath would demonstrate the shaping he used to open the pen, but the old instructor wasn’t interested in that. He wanted Jasn’s strength, and that was it. In that way, he was no more a willing instructor than Alena.

  “Go get some food and rest. You did fine,” Wyath said to him. He looked as if he’d barely struggled with all the shaping they’d done through the day.

  Jasn pulled his hands away from the pen. Marks from the letters carved into the stone he had held had imprinted into his hand, deeper in the places he’d pressed more strongly. He wobbled with his first step, feeling much like he had when he first learned to shape. Exhaustion had been common then. Years spent training in Atenas had made him stronger, but it wasn’t until he’d spent time in Rens that he’d gained real strength. Or so he’d thought.

  Bayan joined him in the street as he made his way toward the dining hall. Food would be good. His stomach groaned, rumbling from a day spent without anything to eat or drink. More than food, sleep would be the most welcome.

  “Makes you feel like a novice again, doesn’t it?” Bayan said with a laugh. “First time I spent all day shaping here, I felt like I’d been trampled by a horse. Happened to me when I was a child, and the achy pain in my body was similar.”

  Jasn didn’t have the same aches, but he felt exhausted. His head swam and he struggled to maintain focus. Colors drifted at the edge of his vision and slid. If he turned his head, he could almost catch them, but then they disappeared.

  “Wyath said there’s an even bigger one held deeper in the mountains?” In some ways, that was hardest to believe, and yet he’d seen the easy way that Alena and Calan had handled the draasin as they brought it into the camp.

  Bayan shrugged. “Possibly. About twice a year, they manage to catch them. Most of the time, they kill them. Calan might brag about his kills, but Alena prides herself on capturing them alive.”

  Jasn looked over his shoulder toward the pen. Standing so near it, even though it was chained and he was protected by the stone, made him uncomfortable. Imagining capturing it made his heart start to race. Killing one, that was a different matter. “How?”

  “I’m not quite to that level,” Bayan said. “You could ask Thenas if you want. He’s gone with Calan a few times, but those have been for kills. Usually only instructors go to capture.”

  “You haven’t gone with her yet?”

  “Everybody has a little different training. That’s part of the reason they make the assignments. My training is different than yours, even.”

  At least Alena hadn’t pulled him to capture a draasin with her yet, though that might be better than what he’d been
asked to do so far. Spending his day staring into the trees, searching for deer or squirrels, or recently birds, was enough to make him almost want to go with her. He had no idea how what she asked of him prepared him for hunting.

  “There were times before coming here where I would go days without needing to shape,” Bayan said. She shook her head and smiled. “Can’t believe I’d ever not have a need here. Alena makes sure that I’m pushed and that I keep progressing.”

  “I thought you were on the border.”

  “I was, but Rens is mostly settled now. The fighting that’s done is more on the interior, where they’re still trying purge the rest of them, but we’ve got the lands we need already. On the border, warriors mostly spend their days waiting.”

  Interesting that she would think Rens settled, but then, he hadn’t spent much time on the border. His focus had been deeper in Rens.

  She tipped her head toward the pen. “We might not see Rens fighters too often, but we see the draasin often enough. Most of the time, you just hide. Never did much good to fight since there wasn’t any way to kill them, or so I thought before coming here.”

  “Anything that lives can die,” Jasn said.

  “Maybe. But until you see the devastation they can inflict, and the surprise of their visits, you don’t really know. Most of us thought they were unstoppable. And they’re still terrifying, but I know they can be beaten, and I believe I’ll learn how to do it.”

  “I know what they can do.” Jasn spoke softly, hating how often this place made him think of Katya and the months he’d spent over the past year trying to forget. All that time, and he’d seen the destruction from the draasin, the horrible way they killed.

  They turned a corner, and Jasn practically ran into Alena.

  Her hair hung in a braid behind her head, and crystal-blue eyes studied Bayan a moment before fixing on and holding Jasn. “There you are,” she said. “Since it appears you no longer fear them as you did, you will come with me.”